


old habbits die hard

by BlueTheBird



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Depression, Eating Disorder, Langst, M/M, but its not really, descriptions of self harm, if you need me to tag anything just shoot a comment, its complicated, mentions of feeling empty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 18:23:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10496892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueTheBird/pseuds/BlueTheBird
Summary: Lance should've seen it coming.Should of seen the familiar sign.Recognized the familiar ache that he thought he lost years ago.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was written at three am when i was going through a tough time and decided to take it out on Lance.There is mentions/descriptions of a eating disorder, self harm, feeling empty, shit like that.It's also unedited because I can't bring myself to reread it, but my friend wants me to post it so here i am.

Lance should've seen it coming.

Should of seen the familiar sign.Recognized the familiar ache that he thought he lost years ago.

Of course, in a ironic since, he ignored it to welcome something familiar. Something to ground him and remind him of home, even it it wasn't healthy.He would blame it on the fact he needed a coping mechanism, and everyone had one so why not him?

\--

What triggered it was a training session.

It was a day after a particularly long mission that landed Pidge in the healing pod for two hours and lance with a huge bruise on his left side from when jumped to late to try and help her.

Coran had decided to bring out the maze, something they haven't done since him and Keith had started there strange “no label because we’re in a war” relationship.

Lance was more tired, mentally and physically, than normal.He had stayed up all night beating himself up over the fact that if he was just faster Pidge would of ended up in the healing pod. 

Sure, he may of been the one in the pod instead, but that wasn't anything new and it was much better than Pidge being in one because he was to slow.

So when Keith told Lance to take one step forward and two steps to the left, Lance decided to take two steps forward and let the small shock of electricity engulf him for a few seconds putting him in a strange trance. Seconds afterwards the maze walls fell and Lance was brought back to reality by Keith question-yelling at him about what that was.

Lance decided to ignore the familiar bittersweet comfort that began to creep its way up into his chest.

\---

The second time it happened was when the Galra attacked the ship randomly.

They were unable to form Voltron because Hunk was in the healing pod with a extremely high fever, a sickness he caught on a planet that they saved two days ago.

Because of this, the fight was harder and seemed to be moving on even slower than usual.

Lance already had a hard time focusing fully during fights.Not in the sense that he got distracted, no he payed to much attention to his fellow paladins and how they where doing.It was In the sense that he was so focused on everyone else that he entered a sort of trance where he didn’t realize he what he was doing.

He would follow instructions without realizing it and throw himself into a blast without a second thought.

Which is why, it came as a surprise to him when he vaguely realized that a blast was coming straight towards him.

Even though he heard Blue’s yells at him to move out of the way, along with the rest of the teams, all motor movements of his shit down and he allowed the blast to him him.

Later, after he had left his three hour stay in the healing pod, he would realize he wasn't the only one hurt by his shut down.

He would actively ignore Hunks concerned look and choice to pay attention to Keith chewing him out over his mistake.He choice to focus on the disappointment that Shiro's face held when he looked at him and ignore the way Pidge seemed to hug his a second longer than expected.

He decided, when visiting Blue later on in the day, that he would never do that again.Not because he got hurt, but because Blue got hurt and he couldn't bare to put here through that again.

\--

The third time it happened was completely intentional.

Lance and Keith had gotten in an argument earlier that day.Something Lance had said set Keith off and the rest was all a blur.

Lance felt like he should be a bit more concerned that more and more things were becoming a blur.That the old feeling of dissociation and not being enough settled heavy in his chest when he wasn't preoccupied with something else.

But the concern hasn't came, and Lance didn't really think about it much.He was just glad for something familiar to cope with.

So he didn't have any second thoughts about taking his shaving razor and ‘accidently’ cut his thigh and watch the blood ball up.

He felt the dark feeling of emptiness curl up in his stomach before exploding and taking over without warning.

A wild itch covered his skin and soon one cut turned into two, and then two became three untill small streaks of blood streaked down his leg.

Suddenly Lance stopped and stared at the cuts on his leg with a strong panic.

Shakily he put down the razor and grabbed a roll of toilet paper that was laying next to it.

As he sat down on the floor and pulled out the Altean first aid kit, he couldn't push back the familiar and unwelcoming thoughts rising in his head.

Stupid.

Failure.

Weak.

Even after he cleaned up and, somehow, made his way to his bed he couldn't feel Blue’s attempt to soothe his pain.He could only feel his feelings of total failure and emptiness that seemed to only become more normal as the days passed.

\----

The fourth time he did it, wasn't a instant relief.

He hadn't realized he was even doing it.But if the last month had anything to go by, old habits died hard.

When he thinks about it now, he distinctly remembers the day it started.

He had been having a bad day, nothing new for him, but for some reason this day seemed to be hitting him worse than usual.Keith and Hunk were away on a political mission with Allura.

Because of this, he had nobody he could lay down next to and try and focus on them instead of himself.He tried it with Pidge, but she only snapped at him to leave her alone.Shiro was a no go since he was actually asleep and that was to rare for Lance to mess it up with his own stupid problems.

Coran would of been an option but Lance wasn't in the mood for talking and unfortunately, Coran did not know how to stop talking.The thought of that made Lance laugh at the irony.If Lance, a boy who never stopped talking, didn't even want to be around that then why would anyone want to be around him?

Instead, Lance spent the day in the small bed in Blue cabin that was meant for emergencies.Unknowingly to the other three in the castle, Lance didn't leave, not even to eat, till the next day when Hunk,Keith and Allura came back.

That night he also didn't eat, instead discreetly giving his food to the mice as everyone talked.

He ignored the warning sign of it and figured he would eat when he got woken by a nightmare in the middle of the night.

The next month he had eaten a total of four full meals and maybe two meals worth of small snacks.

The consequences of it didn't catch up to him till a long day of training, Ironically Lance was having a now-rare good day.

They were running through the drill of the team vs the bots on hand to hand when it happened.Lance spun around quickly to shoot a droid that was coming up on Hunk when white dots faded his vision.His bayard retracted as he stumbled forward and then proceeded to faint.

“Lance!”Hunk yelled, catching the long Cuban boy in his arms as Coran quickly stopped the simulation.

“What happened?”Keith asked, retracting his bayard and quickly rushing over to Hunk, Shiro and Pidge closely behind.

“I-i dont know!”Hunk cried, carefully moving Lance so he was laying down on the mat,”He just fainted.”

Shiro gently put his hand to Lance's forehead and frowned,”He seems to have a small fever.”

“He’s sick?”Pidge asked with a raised eyebrow.She couldn't imagine Lance being a quite sick, she felt like he should of complained his way out if training because of it instead of fainting during it.

“Come to think of it, he has been off lately.”Keith said. Everyone delicately ignore the sound of worry Hunk made.

“Paladins, maybe a break is in measure.”Alluras voice sounded over the room.

Twenty minutes Later Coran looked confused at the reading of Lance The healing lod had recorded.

“Everything okay?”Hunk asked, still not fluent enough in Altean to understand the words on the screen.

“It seems Lance is malnourished, but i dont see how that can be?”

Hunk stiffened slightly and glanced at Lance sleeping body on the couch next to him.They had agreed to keep him in the common room so when he wakes up someone can be near by.

Quick flashes of middle school came up in Hunks mind and the teen involuntarily let out a sound of worry.

“I’m going to prepare him something light for when he wakes up.”Hunk said quickly and rushed to the kitchen.

He remembers when Lance was thirteen he passed out in gym class for the same reason.When confronted about it, Lance had told Hunk that his family was going through a hard time.Money was tight and Lances younger siblings needed to eat more than he did.

Ever since then, when times got hard for Lance he would stop eating for periods of time.Usually Hunk would pick up on it a few days in and force Lance to eat everyday till the younger boy would eat on his own.

Hunk frowned as he realized he hadn't picked up in it till it was too late and Lance made himself sick.

Nausea and worry clawed at Hunks stomach as he thought of what else he hadn't been able to pick up for his best friend.

\----

The fifth time it happened Lance was caught.

A week after the no eating incident, Lance was being forced to eat by Hunk twice and day.The team, thankfully , hadn't picked up on it but Lance could see Pidge slowly realize and Keith start to sense something was different.

Lance was sleeping with Keith that night since Keith had a nightmare and was to afraid to sleep alone.It wasn't an uncommon occurrence and Lance didn't think much of it.

That is, until Lance had a strong familiar itch run through his skin.He carefully moved his arm,that was wrapped around Keith waist, so that he could scratch his other arm and hopefully get rid of the itch.

Instead, the sensation only seemed to strengthen it and overwhelm Lance.

The blue eyed teen gasped as panic filled him and he frantically pulled himself up from the bed.Keith rolled over and, surprisingly, didn't wake as Lance clawed the sheets off of him.

Quickly Lance opened up the bathroom and rushed over to the sink, hoping a cold splash of water could help him.Unfortunately it just left him wet, and simultaneously cold and boiling hot.

As he looked in the mirror, he caught himself still scratching frantically at his arm.He moved his arms as far apart as he could and tried to focus on the wetness of his shirt.

It didn't help for more than five minutes before Lance started crying and going back to scratching his arm.

He sat down next to the bath and tried to ignore the silver glare of the razer sitting next to the soap.He tried to ignore his heart pounding and the tears flooding his vision.He tried to ignore the white hot panic building up in him while simultaneously pouring out.

Suddenly he felt emptiness rise in him accompanying everything all at once.That moment became too much for him and he blindly grabbed the razor and slid it across the top part of his lower arm.

He kept on sliding it across, watching in a strange haze of emptiness and a panic attack.In a sick way, the sight of the familiar blood was calming, a reminder he was still human and that he existed.

Looking back in it, Lance knew he wasn't going to stop till the pain overwhelmed him or he passed out for exhaustion or blood loss.

What did stop him though, was another hand grabbing his and grasping it tightly to keep him from cutting his skin again.

Lance tried to push his hand away, but the attempt was weak as more panic took over.At this point Lance was loudly sobbing and felt like he was about to throw up.

He was vaguely aware of the razor being removed from his hand and someone speaking to him, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what was being said or who it was.

He looked at the blood covering his arm and officially realized that someone was here and could see the mess of himself he had made.

Instantly he opened his mouth to explain himself but couldn't as he quickly moved to dry heave over the toilet.The cold feeling of the toilet brought a small part of reality back and Lance realized that the person next to him was still talking.

“-ere Lance. Everything is okay, im right here.”

Lance leaned back against the wall and looked in front of him, seeing a blurry figure of Keith sitting in front of him holding his hands.

“T-the itch,”Lance managed to say between sobs,”I- it wo- it wouldn't go away.”

Keith stopped talking for a moment before carefully dropping Lance hands and moving away.

Panic filled Lance to the brim again and he curled into himself.He had fucked up again.He ruined everything and now Keith was going to tell everyone and he was going to be kicked off of Voltron.

All because he couldn't ignore a stupid itch.

Before he could fall any farther, he felt someone grab his arm again and gently pull it out.

Lance looked up and saw Keith sitting there, with a first aid kit in his lap and carefully taking things out.

“-is might sting.”

Lance nodded and wiped his face with his other hand.He still felt like he was going to throw up and a ever growing curiosity on why Keith was here filled him.

He barely felt the sting of the cloth wiping the blood away, or the antiseptic gently slathered onto his skin.

As Keith cleaned up the self-inflicted cuts on Lance arm, the younger teen begun to ever slowly calm down.

Once Keith was done, Lance began to process that Keith was crying as well as Lance and would wipe away his silent tears absentmindedly while he worked.

“I'm sorry.”Lance said once Keith was done.

Instead of speaking, Keith kissed Lance and held him in a tighter hug than normal for longer.

After that Keith led Lance back to bed and the two laid down.Keith curled up on Lance, careful to not hit his arm, and positioned himself so he would wake up if Lance tried to leave bed.

This made Lance start to cry again and the rest of the night was spent filled with crying and comforting touches.

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a romanticization of anything mention by the way.I have been through similar situations, and I strongly recommend getting help from a friend or even a online therapist if you feel like any of these things or do them.I was going to write a end for this, but like i said i just can't bring myself to reread it or complete it so that is why it's a open ending.


End file.
